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where to go After Bordeaux

Hi we will fly into Paris ..stay there a few days.. plane or train to Bordeaux for a river cruise.. then????
I am looking for something really that is a train ride or we could rent a car on the way back to Paris. Maybe just one spot that we could stay three days and do day trips.

It is also possible to leave from another airport. We have done Avignon, Toulouse Nice etc.

Ah ha! I see Bilbao is pretty close! that could be an option. Any other ideas?

I wouldn't call Bilbao "pretty close," but I guess that's relative. If you're heading back to Paris and have a mere 3 days, I see no point in plunging southward into another country when there are infinite possibilities just a short train ride away: La Rochelle and Ile de Ré, Arcachon and the Dune du Pylat and Cap Ferret, Cognac, the Dordogne...

And I wouldn't drive back to Paris. It's a long, boring haul. Take trains. Buy your tickets well in advance (92 days to 120 or more, depending on which trains and what kind) to get the cheapest ones. It's far more relaxing, and cheaper, than driving.

From what I recall seeing, the river cruise will not take you over to Sarlat; merely up to Paulliac and down to Cadillac, possibly St. Emilion? If this is so, do rent a car and drive east to Sarlat. It is just enchanting, truly the shining star of the Dordogne. We took the train from Paris-Bordeaux stopping in Limoges because I was determined to see the porcelain museum there. However, unless you collect as much as do I, it may be deemed skippable; the train will serve you best, we analyzed driving options and glad we opted out. You will find endless options staying in Sarlat and taking day trips in all directions an hour or under.

The cruise ship will definitely not take you to Sarlat. There are no cruise ships anywhere near Sarlat and will never be - the river is normally so shallow you can wade across it.

And with only 3 days and depending on the time of year, Sarlat might or might not be a jewel. To me it would make more sense to start wending your way north from Bordeaux, rather than east. Train connections from Bordeaux headed north can take you to all sorts of interesting places like La Rochelle and Nantes or Poitiers, or..... and then you're halfway back to Paris.

Do you mean Tours, the city? I'd have to check connections to Tours from Bordeaux. It seems to me there used to be at least one TGV a day from Bordeaux that stopped in Tours, but I haven't done that for years, so would have to check. Otherwise, trains could be complicated. I don't know. At any rate, Tours is OK, but mostly as a place to grab tours or trains to Loire valley towns to visit the châteaux.

If you're talking about driving to Tours, just be aware that, while the traffic situation there has gotten a lot better in recent years, IMO it's still a pain in the neck to get in and out of, which of course you'd need to do to get out to the châteaux.

BTW, just in case you're not aware, don't use RailEurope for train tickets. Use www.capitainetrain.com if you're paying with an American credit card. It's a partner with SNCF, the official French railway, and has exactly the same schedules and prices, but it will take American cc's, unlike the SNCF sometimes.

HI I still need some help here please. I had decided to go to Amboise..but the hitch is that we will be traveling on Easter Sunday, I hear we might have a heck of a time to get a taxi on Sunday and Monday. We get off the cruise ship in Bordeaux on the Sunday. We will have had one day and one night there. Our flight home is Wednesday AM. I have booked us in to the airport hotel on Tuesday night. So.. should we just stay in Bordeaux? Should we go back to Paris( will have been there) and cancel the airpot hotel.. or where else could we go seeing that this taxi thing might be an issue on those two days.

You could make a stop in Angers. The train from Bordeaux to Angers takes 4 to 6 hours depending on the departure time, with a change of trains in all cases. It arrives in Angers St. Laud, which is in the middle of town, within walking distance of the chateau (the tapestries are worth the trip) and the old town. It probably is the train station where you would get the TGV to Paris.

You could just stay in Bordeaux, I've spent at least two days there, plenty to do for that time.

I don't understand the taxi issue or how that is affecting your decisions. I hardly ever take a taxi in Europe, anyway. So is it that you need a taxi to get from the cruise ship to your hotel? Maybe so, but staying in Bordeaux or moving somewhere else isn't going to solve that, is it? Because if you just left Bordeaux by train, wouldn't you then need a taxi to the train station?

I'm not sure who you heard that from but taxis don't stop running on holidays, if that's what they said. I've taken taxis on holidays a lot more important than Easter. But maybe Bordeaux is special in that regard, don't know, I haven't taken a taxi there. Where exactly are you docking, anyway, in or around Bordeaux? Because some cruise ships dock Verdon which is pretty far away, or Bassens which is a half hour away. But if you are docking in Bordeaux at the Esplanade des Quinconces, you could even walk to a hotel if you don't have too much stuff. In fact, that's only about 400 meters from the hotel I stayed at which I really liked (the Hotel Majestic). The Majestic probably is the closest hotel to that docking site. Or this modest 2* hotel which is right off place de la Bourse http://www.acanthe-hotel-bordeaux.com/en/

So I'm not understanding the taxi issues. But if you want to see some other place for a day or two on the train route to Paris, you could choose Poitiers or Tours. Although you'd have to check the trains scheduled as some TGVs stop in one or both of those and some do not. You can use www.bahn.de to check intermediate stops

Or did you mean you were staying at a Bordeaux airport hotel? I wouldn't do that, it's not that hard to get to the airport from Bordeaux, I did it by bus. There is a navette that goes from the train station to the airport. And that wouldn't be a holiday, anyway.

I sorry. to be confusing.
1. the Taxi issue on the holiday..as I was told.. was Amboise..since it is so small.
2. Airport hotel is at CDG.

at the moment I am down to
a. staying in Bordeaux(I will find out where we dock)this is probably the simplest.
b. going back to Paris..which could be nice, we could stay in a different area
c. Or Poitiers or Tours.. I need to look in to the train schedules.

I believe most of the ships come right into "town" near the Esplanade des Quinconces and Place de la Bourse.

We have a home about an hour from Bordeaux near La Rochelle and that whole area is really nice. If you don't have time before the cruise to stay in Bordeaux, I would recommend that you stay for those few days after. The city is super easy to manage without a car-a great tram system and that will be a pretty time of year. There is also a bus that we call the "drunk bus" that departs near the Esplanade des Quinconces that goes out to St. Emillion to do wine tastings.

If you will already spend some time in Bordeaux on the way down, and want to explore the beach, then you might consider renting a car in Bordeaux and driving out to Royan and the La Rochelle area. You could return the car to Bordeaux (to save drop off fees)or take the TGV from La Rochelle back to Paris or from Bordeaux to Paris.

I agree with that, as Bordeaux is certainly as interesting as the city of Tours IMO. However, you could visit some chateau(x) from Tours if you stayed there, I did. I think I spent one day visiting the things in the city of Tours.

You can easily get to Amboise and Blois by train from Tours center, it's only about 20 minutes. Now the train station in Amboise is across the river so a bit of a hike to the main tourist sites of interest. I walked it, but I like to walk a lot in fine weather. It's about 2 km to Clos Luce, for example. Now I did take a bus from tours to go to Amboise, as I recall (which left me off along the river closer to town center), then hiked over to the train station and took the train onward to Blois in the afternoon. The chateau in Blois isn't that far from the train staton, that town is easy to walk around.

The bus takes closer to an hour but I don't mind that. It leaves from the bus station in Tours which is right at the center train station. I think it may even go all the way to Clos Luce in Amboise, it only costs a couple euro. You can get the bus schedule on here, it's line C.http://www.tourainefilvert.com/presentation/?rub_code=71

It also goes to the TGV station just after it starts out at the center station. In any case, tehre are buses all the time.